Wednesday, 3 February 2010

What? Me Text!

Did TransLink not get the message or they above the law? All the restrictions on cell phones and operation of electronic devices have pretty well been communicated to the public by the media as shown by a story on Global BC. Apparently, Solicitor General Kash Heed neglected to forward a copy of the legislation to the TransLink head office or in the interests of national security surrounding the Olympic Games the transportation authority has carte blanche to ignore the rules.
Just this evening around 7PM as we drove west in the far left lane on Lougheed nearing Willington, a Translink supervisory vehicle A729 weaving in the right lane nearly clipped us as he swerved almost 3 feet out of his lane. As we passed just before coming to halt at a red light, we were surprised to see the vehicle driver merrily typing away on his laptop with his eyes firmly glued to the screen. Too bad we couldn’t have slipped him the following note quote “No holding or operating any electronic device including cellphones, hand-held radios, BlackBerrys, video game consoles, iPods, gps, or laptops”. Even though the laptop is mounted to the dashboard, it is operated by hand and not voice. And by-the-way there were no buses in sight so any excuse of tracking the rolling stock would not hold up.
Wonder if the police, RCMP or VPD, - the so-called Translink “police” could hardly be expected to ticket their buddies - have considered fining or at least warning these transgressors?
Which reminds me. Don’t the police units also come with installed computers which the officers are always plugging away at while cruising about town? Photo by Flickr user R. Flores used under Creative Commons